Many books have been published on Jonathan Edwards (1703-58), widely regarded as the greatest American theologian. Some are by experts who typically write only for fellow specialists. Others are by ...
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Many books have been published on Jonathan Edwards (1703-58), widely regarded as the greatest American theologian. Some are by experts who typically write only for fellow specialists. Others are by popular authors who are unaware of recent scholarly discoveries. This book contains chapters based on the latest research on the subject of Edwards and the result is an introduction to North America’s most important religious mind on subjects he considered vitally important: revival, Bible, typology, aesthetics, literature, preaching, philosophy, and world religions. It also includes a survey of his life and career, extended reflections on his relevance to today’s church and world, and much more.Less

Published in print: 2009-01-01

Many books have been published on Jonathan Edwards (1703-58), widely regarded as the greatest American theologian. Some are by experts who typically write only for fellow specialists. Others are by popular authors who are unaware of recent scholarly discoveries. This book contains chapters based on the latest research on the subject of Edwards and the result is an introduction to North America’s most important religious mind on subjects he considered vitally important: revival, Bible, typology, aesthetics, literature, preaching, philosophy, and world religions. It also includes a survey of his life and career, extended reflections on his relevance to today’s church and world, and much more.

Nathaniel William Taylor (1786–1858) was arguably the most influential American theologian of his generation. Despite his tremendous national influence, however, his views were chronically ...
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Nathaniel William Taylor (1786–1858) was arguably the most influential American theologian of his generation. Despite his tremendous national influence, however, his views were chronically misunderstood. He and his associates always declared themselves to be Edwardsian Calvinists – working in the train of “America's Augustine,” Jonathan Edwards – but very few people, then or since, have believed them. In this revisionist study, Douglas A. Sweeney examines why Taylor and his associates counted themselves Edwardsians. He explores what it meant to be an Edwardsian minister and intellectual in the nineteenth century, how the Edwardsian tradition evolved after the death of Edwards himself, how Taylor promoted and eventually fragmented this tradition, and the significance of these developments for the future of evangelical America. Sweeney argues that Taylor's theology has been misconstrued by the vast majority of scholars, who have depicted him as a powerful symbol of the decline of Edwardsian Calvinism and the triumph of democratic liberalism in early national religion. Sweeney instead sees Taylor as a symbol of the vitality of Edwardsian Calvinism throughout the first half of the nineteenth century, a vitality that calls into question some widely held assumptions about this era. Charting Taylor's contribution to the modification, diversification, and ultimate dissolution of the Edwardsian tradition, Sweeney demonstrates his role in the translation of Edwardsian ideals to the ever‐expanding evangelical world that would succeed him. The Edwardsian tradition did not die out in the early nineteenth century, but rather grew rapidly until at least the 1840s. Nathaniel W. Taylor, more than anyone else, laid the theoretical groundwork for this growth – contributing, to be sure, to the demise of New England Theology, but at the same time making it accessible to an unprecedented number of people.Less

Nathaniel Taylor, New Haven Theology, and the Legacy of Jonathan Edwards

Douglas A. Sweeney

Published in print: 2002-12-19

Nathaniel William Taylor (1786–1858) was arguably the most influential American theologian of his generation. Despite his tremendous national influence, however, his views were chronically misunderstood. He and his associates always declared themselves to be Edwardsian Calvinists – working in the train of “America's Augustine,” Jonathan Edwards – but very few people, then or since, have believed them. In this revisionist study, Douglas A. Sweeney examines why Taylor and his associates counted themselves Edwardsians. He explores what it meant to be an Edwardsian minister and intellectual in the nineteenth century, how the Edwardsian tradition evolved after the death of Edwards himself, how Taylor promoted and eventually fragmented this tradition, and the significance of these developments for the future of evangelical America. Sweeney argues that Taylor's theology has been misconstrued by the vast majority of scholars, who have depicted him as a powerful symbol of the decline of Edwardsian Calvinism and the triumph of democratic liberalism in early national religion. Sweeney instead sees Taylor as a symbol of the vitality of Edwardsian Calvinism throughout the first half of the nineteenth century, a vitality that calls into question some widely held assumptions about this era. Charting Taylor's contribution to the modification, diversification, and ultimate dissolution of the Edwardsian tradition, Sweeney demonstrates his role in the translation of Edwardsian ideals to the ever‐expanding evangelical world that would succeed him. The Edwardsian tradition did not die out in the early nineteenth century, but rather grew rapidly until at least the 1840s. Nathaniel W. Taylor, more than anyone else, laid the theoretical groundwork for this growth – contributing, to be sure, to the demise of New England Theology, but at the same time making it accessible to an unprecedented number of people.

Calvin’s ecclesiology is a site of creative theological construction, drawing together the insights of the gathered church of the radical Reformation and the Catholic notion of the church as a ...
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Calvin’s ecclesiology is a site of creative theological construction, drawing together the insights of the gathered church of the radical Reformation and the Catholic notion of the church as a sacrament of grace. Calvin’s pastoral practice acknowledged the peccability of the church while energetically pursuing visible holiness. He argued for particular reforms but also believed that the building up of the church is God’s work: the church for Calvin is at once a community of gift and a community of argument. Edwards inherited the theological tensions and the dynamism of Calvin’s ecclesiology, and his own pastorate provided ample opportunities for ecclesial reflection. This chapter compares Calvin’s arguments against requiring ministerial celibacy with Edwards’s arguments in support of revivals, making clear that both saw the central pastoral task not as the maintenance of a historic tradition but as the prayerful, communal discernment of the present form of ecclesial faithfulness.Less

Practical Ecclesiology in John Calvin and Jonathan Edwards

Amy Plantinga Pauw

Published in print: 2010-02-01

Calvin’s ecclesiology is a site of creative theological construction, drawing together the insights of the gathered church of the radical Reformation and the Catholic notion of the church as a sacrament of grace. Calvin’s pastoral practice acknowledged the peccability of the church while energetically pursuing visible holiness. He argued for particular reforms but also believed that the building up of the church is God’s work: the church for Calvin is at once a community of gift and a community of argument. Edwards inherited the theological tensions and the dynamism of Calvin’s ecclesiology, and his own pastorate provided ample opportunities for ecclesial reflection. This chapter compares Calvin’s arguments against requiring ministerial celibacy with Edwards’s arguments in support of revivals, making clear that both saw the central pastoral task not as the maintenance of a historic tradition but as the prayerful, communal discernment of the present form of ecclesial faithfulness.

Although Brainerd's published journals had proven to be popular reading, the publication of his private writings as The Life of David Brainerd by Jonathan Edwards provided a fresh burst of interest ...
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Although Brainerd's published journals had proven to be popular reading, the publication of his private writings as The Life of David Brainerd by Jonathan Edwards provided a fresh burst of interest in Brainerd's life. However, Edwards published the diaries as one means of dealing with a specific problem among the members of his church—their waning commitment to God. Although Edwards intended the Life of Brainerd to be an example, it proved to be one of the reasons his congregation chose to dismiss him in 1751.Less

Jonathan Edwards’s Life of Brainerd

John A. Grigg

Published in print: 2009-11-01

Although Brainerd's published journals had proven to be popular reading, the publication of his private writings as The Life of David Brainerd by Jonathan Edwards provided a fresh burst of interest in Brainerd's life. However, Edwards published the diaries as one means of dealing with a specific problem among the members of his church—their waning commitment to God. Although Edwards intended the Life of Brainerd to be an example, it proved to be one of the reasons his congregation chose to dismiss him in 1751.

Mark Twain grappled seriously with theologians from the Calvinist tradition. While many of his comments seem dismissive (and funny), it is clear that Calvinism charged his writing with what one might ...
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Mark Twain grappled seriously with theologians from the Calvinist tradition. While many of his comments seem dismissive (and funny), it is clear that Calvinism charged his writing with what one might call an insistent humorousness of purpose. Reflecting on free will, election, and predestination, Twain read especially Jonathan Edwards; not just as one of whom to make fun but as one with whom he had much in common. Edwards provided more than just a whipping boy for Twain’s philosophical comedy—they shared a theological vocabulary, metaphysical assumptions, and a view of God as sovereign. Their disagreements were substantial, but Mark Twain and the Calvinists were partners in the same enterprise. Thus, one can argue that Twain’s growth as a writer came, not, as some have argued, only insofar as he could distance himself from his Calvinist upbringing and influences, but rather as he fully engaged and wrestled with that tradition.Less

Joe B. Fulton

Published in print: 2010-02-01

Mark Twain grappled seriously with theologians from the Calvinist tradition. While many of his comments seem dismissive (and funny), it is clear that Calvinism charged his writing with what one might call an insistent humorousness of purpose. Reflecting on free will, election, and predestination, Twain read especially Jonathan Edwards; not just as one of whom to make fun but as one with whom he had much in common. Edwards provided more than just a whipping boy for Twain’s philosophical comedy—they shared a theological vocabulary, metaphysical assumptions, and a view of God as sovereign. Their disagreements were substantial, but Mark Twain and the Calvinists were partners in the same enterprise. Thus, one can argue that Twain’s growth as a writer came, not, as some have argued, only insofar as he could distance himself from his Calvinist upbringing and influences, but rather as he fully engaged and wrestled with that tradition.

Widely considered America's greatest theologian, Jonathan Edwards, more than any other American, asserted that love dominated and defined heaven—the love among the three members of the Trinity, the ...
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Widely considered America's greatest theologian, Jonathan Edwards, more than any other American, asserted that love dominated and defined heaven—the love among the three members of the Trinity, the love between God the Father, Christ the Son, and the Holy Spirit and individual saints, and the saints' love of one another. His portrait of heaven, like those of George Whitefield and other leaders of the First Great Awakening of the 1730s and 1740s, focused on the saints' praise of God, intimate relationship with Christ, growth (especially in knowledge), and social harmony. Edwards also emphasized heavenly rewards and argued that to avoid the suffering of hell and enjoy the glories of heaven, people must be born again. As Calvinists, First Great Awakening revivalists believed that God predestined people to salvation, but they also exhorted people to pursue holiness.Less

Jonathan Edwards and the First Great Awakening : Heaven Is a World of Love

Gary Scott Smith

Published in print: 2011-06-01

Widely considered America's greatest theologian, Jonathan Edwards, more than any other American, asserted that love dominated and defined heaven—the love among the three members of the Trinity, the love between God the Father, Christ the Son, and the Holy Spirit and individual saints, and the saints' love of one another. His portrait of heaven, like those of George Whitefield and other leaders of the First Great Awakening of the 1730s and 1740s, focused on the saints' praise of God, intimate relationship with Christ, growth (especially in knowledge), and social harmony. Edwards also emphasized heavenly rewards and argued that to avoid the suffering of hell and enjoy the glories of heaven, people must be born again. As Calvinists, First Great Awakening revivalists believed that God predestined people to salvation, but they also exhorted people to pursue holiness.

Literature, American, 18th Century and Early American Literature, American, 19th Century Literature

Chapter 2 builds on chapter 1 by examining the continuities of thought between Jonathan Edwards and the previous generation of Puritan divines surrounding the concept of conversion and his ...
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Chapter 2 builds on chapter 1 by examining the continuities of thought between Jonathan Edwards and the previous generation of Puritan divines surrounding the concept of conversion and his theological departure from the high preparationism represented by Thomas Shepard. Through an analysis of his major concepts such as the affections, the “sense of the heart,” “actual” ideas, and “attention of the mind in thinking” in works such as Religious Affections, “The Mind,” and his “Miscellanies,” this chapter presents Edwards as an important transitional figure between Calvinist theology and Emerson’s transcendentalism, specifically in the ways he conceptualized the roles of consciousness, perception, the will, and habit in the conversion process. Focusing on his adoption of objective idealism and Locke’s theory of epistemology, it argues that by making consciousness a creative force bringing God’s universe into being, Edwards was able to characterize conversion as an affective, yet orderly, process taking place at the horizons of consciousness, a space of indeterminacy, where abstract and concrete truths, certainty and uncertainty, and perception and objects perceived are in constant flux, generating new beliefs about the world and self. In this way, conversion is responsible for the continual process of creating original relations to the universe.Less

“Something That Is Seen, That Is Wonderful” : Jonathan Edwards and the Feeling of Conviction

Andrea Knutson

Published in print: 2010-12-03

Chapter 2 builds on chapter 1 by examining the continuities of thought between Jonathan Edwards and the previous generation of Puritan divines surrounding the concept of conversion and his theological departure from the high preparationism represented by Thomas Shepard. Through an analysis of his major concepts such as the affections, the “sense of the heart,” “actual” ideas, and “attention of the mind in thinking” in works such as Religious Affections, “The Mind,” and his “Miscellanies,” this chapter presents Edwards as an important transitional figure between Calvinist theology and Emerson’s transcendentalism, specifically in the ways he conceptualized the roles of consciousness, perception, the will, and habit in the conversion process. Focusing on his adoption of objective idealism and Locke’s theory of epistemology, it argues that by making consciousness a creative force bringing God’s universe into being, Edwards was able to characterize conversion as an affective, yet orderly, process taking place at the horizons of consciousness, a space of indeterminacy, where abstract and concrete truths, certainty and uncertainty, and perception and objects perceived are in constant flux, generating new beliefs about the world and self. In this way, conversion is responsible for the continual process of creating original relations to the universe.

At first glance, American Universalism seems to have been one of the clearest manifestations of the rational spirit of the revolutionary era, and with its bold assertion of salvation for all, the ...
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At first glance, American Universalism seems to have been one of the clearest manifestations of the rational spirit of the revolutionary era, and with its bold assertion of salvation for all, the Universalist movement was shocking even in an atmosphere charged with challenges to orthodox Calvinist doctrines. In the nineteenth century, Universalists became even more closely identified with rationalistic dissent. Drawing upon eighteenth-century evangelical Calvinism on the one hand and Enlightenment liberalism on the other, Universalism emerged as an attempt to nourish piety through rational conviction. Reason, Universalists argued, dictated that a benevolent God would redeem all of creation; the doctrine of universal salvation was God’s way of influencing human affections and turning naturally self-centred human beings to the love of God and the greater creation. This chapter traces the early development of the movement and the notable figures involved.Less

Calvinism Improved

Ann Lee Bressler

Published in print: 2001-05-17

At first glance, American Universalism seems to have been one of the clearest manifestations of the rational spirit of the revolutionary era, and with its bold assertion of salvation for all, the Universalist movement was shocking even in an atmosphere charged with challenges to orthodox Calvinist doctrines. In the nineteenth century, Universalists became even more closely identified with rationalistic dissent. Drawing upon eighteenth-century evangelical Calvinism on the one hand and Enlightenment liberalism on the other, Universalism emerged as an attempt to nourish piety through rational conviction. Reason, Universalists argued, dictated that a benevolent God would redeem all of creation; the doctrine of universal salvation was God’s way of influencing human affections and turning naturally self-centred human beings to the love of God and the greater creation. This chapter traces the early development of the movement and the notable figures involved.

A Calvinist spirituality of desire, celebrating the beauty of God in creation, reached a new height in Jonathan Edwards in the eighteenth century. A theologian of beauty par excellence, he perceived ...
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A Calvinist spirituality of desire, celebrating the beauty of God in creation, reached a new height in Jonathan Edwards in the eighteenth century. A theologian of beauty par excellence, he perceived the shared desire of the Holy Trinity as continually overflowing in its effort to replicate its glory in the wonders of the world and the beauty of the human soul. Influenced by Lockian epistemology and the fervor of the revival, he emphasized a sensory knowledge of God. This was experienced in a new “spiritual sense” that allowed believers to relish the aesthetic grandeur of a world alive with beauty. For Edwards, aesthetics were inseparably related to ethics, as he went on to emphasize how “delighting” in beauty also necessitates the “bestowing” of beauty on others.Less

Jonathan Edwards on Beauty, Desire, and the Sensory World

Belden C. Lane

Published in print: 2011-03-23

A Calvinist spirituality of desire, celebrating the beauty of God in creation, reached a new height in Jonathan Edwards in the eighteenth century. A theologian of beauty par excellence, he perceived the shared desire of the Holy Trinity as continually overflowing in its effort to replicate its glory in the wonders of the world and the beauty of the human soul. Influenced by Lockian epistemology and the fervor of the revival, he emphasized a sensory knowledge of God. This was experienced in a new “spiritual sense” that allowed believers to relish the aesthetic grandeur of a world alive with beauty. For Edwards, aesthetics were inseparably related to ethics, as he went on to emphasize how “delighting” in beauty also necessitates the “bestowing” of beauty on others.

Although the renowned Calvinist divine Jonathan Edwards scarcely fits the conventional image of a nature writer, his work embodies a theology of Creation that has important implications for ...
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Although the renowned Calvinist divine Jonathan Edwards scarcely fits the conventional image of a nature writer, his work embodies a theology of Creation that has important implications for environmental ethics. As such, his ethical philosophy anticipates--in several surprising but instructive ways—the twentieth-century “land ethic” set forth by Aldo Leopold in his Sand County Almanac. Edwards’s notion of “benevolence to Being in general,” as articulated in The Nature of True Virtue, is a theocentric ideal that resists the anthropocentric assumption that nature exists solely to fulfill human needs and desires. Edwards’s vision of Creation as an all-encompassing and sacred beauty thus anticipates the modern sense of “ecology” that likewise affirms the interactive unity of all living and nonliving things.Less

Intimations of an Environmental Ethic in the Writings of Jonathan Edwards

John Gatta

Published in print: 2004-10-21

Although the renowned Calvinist divine Jonathan Edwards scarcely fits the conventional image of a nature writer, his work embodies a theology of Creation that has important implications for environmental ethics. As such, his ethical philosophy anticipates--in several surprising but instructive ways—the twentieth-century “land ethic” set forth by Aldo Leopold in his Sand County Almanac. Edwards’s notion of “benevolence to Being in general,” as articulated in The Nature of True Virtue, is a theocentric ideal that resists the anthropocentric assumption that nature exists solely to fulfill human needs and desires. Edwards’s vision of Creation as an all-encompassing and sacred beauty thus anticipates the modern sense of “ecology” that likewise affirms the interactive unity of all living and nonliving things.